1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging device and an imaging method emitting a flash for imaging.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, when using a flash or other auxiliary illumination light under low illumination for imaging, as shown in FIG. 2, a dynamic range of an imaging element becomes insufficient in comparison with the dynamic range of the subject, and therefore the principal subject is imaged with a right exposure, but, as shown in FIG. 3, the background and other low illumination parts become out of the dynamic range of the imaging element, and therefore the corresponding regions end up being crushed to black. As a means for solving this, in imaging of a night view including a person or other low illumination subject, so-called “slow synchro” imaging setting a shutter speed, etc., so that the background has a right exposure and imaging the person or other principal subject by setting to the right exposure by a flash or other auxiliary illumination light is known. In general slow synchro imaging, however, in imaging of a night view including a person or other low illumination subject, the imaging is carried out by setting the shutter time so that the background has a right exposure and setting the right exposure for the person or other principal subject by a flash or other auxiliary illumination light. In this slow synchro imaging, the shutter time is to set match with the illumination of the background, and therefore the imaging is carried out by the shutter for a long time of about a few seconds. Unless preventing the shaking of the background by using a tripod or other fixing means, the image of the background ends up flowing due to so-called hand blurring.
In imaging under a low illumination where the shutter speed becomes long, for example, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2005-38396, a so-called electronic hand blurring correcting means continuously imaging a plurality of photos at a shutter speed higher than the shutter speed achieving the right exposure, computing the amounts of movement of the images due to hand blurring, etc., correcting them and combining them into a single image is known. In this regard, a flash or other auxiliary illumination light generally has an afterglow characteristic, as shown in FIG. 4, and a color temperature characteristic different from natural light. For this reason, particularly at the time of afterglow, the natural light and the auxiliary illumination light are mixed to exhibit complex color temperature characteristics. When using the imaging device disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2005-38396 combined with the above electronic hand blurring correcting means, the illumination and color temperature of the subject complexly change during the continuous imaging as shown in FIG. 5, so the image is apt to have unnatural color tones after combining the images.